Black History Month...Let's make History

So, we have a lot to celebrate this year...besides the obvious we are alive and well let's not forget we are all trying to be healthier.  So anyone wanna play along and teach something or learn something?

I will try to find obscure bits of history (and post daily) but, I am sure there are folks on the board who already know some obscure stuff to share.


We are making history right now...1st Black American President in office and making change a reality.

So Luxembourg is the country that borders Belgium to the south. Patricia Roberts Harris was the first African-American woman to hold a U.S. ambassadorship when she was named in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson to the embassy in Luxembourg.

Wow I like the idea of this post.  I'll see what tidbits I can add.

Thanks

We got all month so come on and share.

I'll play along and give some history from Buffalo (where I am from).  We have our first African American mayor (58th mayor) Byron Brown.  Took office December 31, 2005.  And I think he's doing a fabulous job! 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Brown

This is what I am  talking about.  We are doing great things and should know not just what we hear about in school as kids but the modern day learders too.

Black History Month originated in 1926 by Carter Godwin Woodson as Negro History Week. The month of February was chosen in honor of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, who were both born in that month.

Now THAT is good to know!  Here I was thinking it was Feb cause that's the shortest month.......

I was wondering how it came to be in February.

Thank-You sooo much for this Thread; I came in with the intention of starting one like it. I awoke this morning with this on my mind. Where I have come from as a People and individually. This says it better than any words I can conceive at the moment. The Negro National Anthem, By James Weldon Johnson (the words still bowl me over, their power is so relevant still, even more so today...he for-told the future. I have a GREAT since of Pride in who I am as a person and the People that bore me. For those wo would like to hear the song click this link...I really like this rendition song by Kim Weston.


http://talkmania.trenzter.com/2009/01/negro-national-anthem-lyrics-audio.html


PS: Pat Harris and Barbara Jordan legacies prompted me to go to Law School. I read Mrs. Harris' words (in a book) when she was Dean of Howard Law School during turbulent  times; "I have NEVER been a white man's ***** so why would I be a Black man's *****!!!"



Lift Every Voice And Sing is often called "The Negro National Anthem" (or Black National Anthem)-was written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) and then set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954) in 1900. It was first performed in public in the Johnsons’ hometown of Jacksonville, Florida as part of a celebration of Lincoln’s Birthday on February 12, 1900 by a choir of 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was principal.

Lift Every Voice And Sing Lyrics :

Lift every voice and sing,

’Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ’til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
’Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

That is awesome see everything comes full circle.  I will wait and see your post tomorrow because we do have 28 whole days so take the lead sister.  I'll ride with ya.


~Maxine

PS I didn't know it was also known as the Negro National Anthem